
Gass^-i^ 



Book_ 



THE FRINGES OF THE 
FLEET 



Books by Rudyard Kipling 



Actions and Reactions 
Brushwood Boy, The 
Captains Courageous 
Collected Verse 
Day's Work, the 
Departmental Ditties 
and Ballads and Bar- 
rack-Room Ballads 
Five Nations, The 
France at War 
History of England, A 
Jungle Book, The 
Jungle Book, Second 
Just So Song Book 
Just So Stories 
Kim 

Kd?ling Stories and 
Poems Every Child 
Should Know 
Kipling Birthday Book, 

The 
Life's Handicap: Being 
Stories of Mine Own 
People 
Light That Failed, The 



Many Inventions 

Naulahka, The (With 
wolcott balestier) 

Plain Tales From the 
Hills 

Puck of Pook's Hill 

Rewards and Fairies 

Sea to Sea, From 

Seven Seas, The 

Soldier Stories 

Soldiers Three, The 
Story of the Gadsbys, 
and in Black and 
White 

Song of The English, 
The 

Songs From Books 

Stalky & Co. 

They 

Traffics and Discov- 
eries 

Under the Deodars, 
The Phanton Rick- 
shaw, and Wee 
Willie Winkie 

With the Night Mail 



THE FRINGES 
OF THE FLEET 



BY 

i 



RUDYARD KIPLING 




Garden City New York 

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 

1915 






Copyright, 1915, 62/ 
Rudyard Kipling 

All rights reserved, including that of 

translation into foreign languages, 

including the Scandinavian 

7 // 





CONTENTS 


PAGE 


The Auxiliaries 




I. . 




5 


II. . 




21 


Submarines 




I. . 




. 39 


II. . 




. 59 


Patrols 






I. . 




. 83 


II. . 




. 103 





THE FRINGES OF THE 
FLEET 



In Lowestoft a boat was laid, 

Mark well ivhat I do say ! 

And she was built for the herring trade. 

But she has gone a-rovin\ a-rovin\ a-rovin\ 

The Lord knows where ! 

They gave her Government coal to burn. 
And a Q.F. gun at bow and stern, 
And sent her out a-rovin\ etc. 

Her skipper was mate of a bucko ship 
Which always killed one man per trip, 
So he is used to rovin\ etc. 

Her mate was skipper of a chapel in Wales, 
And so he fights in topper and tails, 
Religi-ous tho' rovin\ etc. 



4 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

Her engineer is fifty-eight, 

So he's prepared to meet his fate, 

Which ain't unlikely rovin', etc. 

Her leading-stoker's seventeen. 

So he don't know what the Judgments mean, 

Unless he cops 'em rovin', etc. 

Her cook was chef in the Lost Dogs 9 Home, 

Mark well what I do say, 
And I'm sorry for Fritz when they all come 

A-rovin', a-rovin', a-roarin' and a-rovin\ 

Round the North Sea rovin', 

The Lord knows where 1 



I 

THE AUXILIARIES 

The Navy is very old and very wise. 
Much of her wisdom is on record and 
available for reference; but more of it 
works in the unconscious blood of those 
who serve her. She has a thousand 
years of experience, and can find prece- 
dent or parallel for any situation that 
the force of the weather or the malice 
of the King's enemies may bring about. 

The main principles of sea-warfare 
hold good throughout all ages, and, 
so far as the Navy has been allowed to 
put out her strength, these principles 
have been applied over all the seas of 

5 



6 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

the world. For matters of detail the 
Navy, to whom all days are alike, has 
simply returned to the practice and 
resurrected the spirit of old days. 

In the late French wars, a merchant 
sailing out of a Channel port might in 
a few hours find himself laid by the 
heels and under way for a French 
prison. His Majesty's ships of the 
Line, and even the big frigates, took 
little part in policing the waters for 
him, unless he were in convoy. The 
sloops, cutters, gun-brigs, and local 
craft of all kinds were supposed to 
look after that, while the Line was 
busy elsewhere. So the merchants 
passed resolutions against the inade- 
quate protection afforded to the trade, 
and the narrow seas were full of 
single-ship actions; mail -packets, West 



THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 7 

Country brigs, and fat East India- 
men fighting for their own hulls and 
cargo anything that the watchful 
French ports sent against them; the 
sloops and cutters bearing a hand if 
they happened to be within reach. 

THE OLDEST NAVY 

It was a brutal age, ministered to by 
hard-fisted men, and we had put it a 
hundred decent years behind us when 
— it all comes back again! To-day 
there are no prisons for the crews of 
merchantmen, but they can go to the 
bottom by mine and torpedo even 
more quickly than their ancestors 
were run into Le Havre. The subma- 
rine takes the place of the privateer; 
the Line, as in the old wars, is occupied 
bombarding and blockading, else- 



8 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

where, but the sea-borne traffic must 
continue, and that is being looked 
after by the lineal descendants of the 
crews of the long extinct cutters and 
sloops and gun-brigs. The hour 
struck, and they reappeared, to the 
tune of fifty thousand odd men in 
more than two thousand ships, of 
which I have seen a few hundred. 
Words of command may have changed 
a little, the tools are certainly more 
complex, but the spirit of the new 
crews who come to the old job is 
utterly unchanged. It is the same 
fierce, hard-living, heavy-handed, very 
cunning service out of which the 
Navy as we know it to-day was born. 
It is called indifferently the Trawler 
and Auxiliary Fleet. It is chiefly 
composed of fishermen, but it takes 



THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 9 

in every one who may have maritime 
tastes — from retired admirals to the 
son of the sea-cook. It exists for the 
benefit of the traffic and the annoy- 
ance of the enemy. Its doings are 
recorded by flags stuck into charts ; its 
casualties are buried in obscure corners 
of the newspapers. The Grand Fleet 
knows it slightly; the restless light 
cruisers who chaperon it from the 
background are more intimate; the 
destroyers working off unlighted 
coasts over unmarked shoals come, as 
you might say, in direct contact with 
it; the submarine alternately praises 
and — since one periscope is very like 
another — curses its activities; but the 
steady procession of traffic in home 
waters, liner and tramp, six every 
sixty minutes, blesses it altogether. 



10 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

Since this most Christian war in- 
cludes laying mines in the fairways of 
traffic, and since these mines may be 
laid at any time by German sub- 
marines especially built for the work, 
or by neutral ships, all fairways must 
be swept continuously day and night. 
When a nest of mines is reported, 
traffic must be hung up or deviated 
till it is cleared out. When traffic 
comes up Channel it must be examined 
for contraband and other things; and 
the examining tugs lie out in a blaze 
of lights to remind ships of this. 
Months ago, when the war was young, 
the tugs did not know what to look 
for specially. Now they do. All 
this mine-searching and reporting 
and sweeping, plus the direction and 
examination of the traffic, plus the 



THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 11 

laying of our own ever-shifting mine- 
fields, is part of the. Trawler Fleet's 
work, because the Navy-as-we-knew- 
it is busy elsewhere. And there is 
always the enemy submarine with a 
price on her head, whom the Trawler 
Fleet hunts and traps with zeal and 
joy. Add to this, that there are boats 
fishing for real fish, to be protected 
in their work at sea or chased off 
dangerous areas where, because they 
are strictly forbidden to go, they 
naturally repair, and you will begin 
to get some idea of what the Trawler 
and Auxiliary Fleet does. 

THE SHIPS AND THE MEN 

Now, imagine the acreage of several 
dock-basins crammed, gunwale to 
gunwale, with brown and umber and 



12 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

ochre and rust-red steam-trawlers, 
tugs, harbour boats, and yachts once 
clean and respectable, now dirty and 
happy. Throw in fish-steamers, sur- 
prise-packets of unknown lines and 
indescribable junks, sampans, lorchas, 
catamarans, and General Service 
stink-pontoons filled with indescrib- 
able apparatus, manned by men no 
dozen of whom seem to talk the same 
dialect or wear the same clothes. 
The mustard-coloured jersey who is 
cleaning a six-pounder on a Hull boat 
clips his words between his teeth and 
would be happier in Gaelic. The 
whitish singlet and grey trousers held 
up by what is obviously his soldier 
brother's spare regimental belt is 
pure Lowestoft. The complete blue 
serge and soot suit passing a wire 



THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 13 

down a hatch is Glasgow as far as you 
can hear him, which is a fair distance, 
because he wants something done to 
the other end of the wire, and the flat- 
faced boy who should be attending 
to it hails from the remoter Hebrides, 
and is looking at a girl on the dock- 
edge. The bow-legged man in the 
ulster and green-worsted comforter 
is a warm Grimsby skipper, worth 
several thousands. He and his crew, 
who are mostly his own relations, 
keep themselves to themselves, and 
save their money. The pirate with 
the red beard barking over the rail 
at a friend with gold earrings comes 
from Skye. The friend is West Coun- 
try. The noticeably insignificant 

i 

man with the soft and deprecating 
eye is skipper and part-owner of the 



14 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

big slashing Iceland trawler on which 
he droops like a flower. She is built 
to almost Western Ocean lines, carries 
a little boat-deck aft with tremendous 
stanchions, has a nose cocked high 
against ice and sweeping seas, and 
resembles a hawk-moth at rest. The 
small, sniffing man is reported to be 
a " holy terror at sea." 

HUNTERS AND FISHERS 

The child in the Pullman-car uni- 
form just going ashore is a wireless 
operator, aged nineteen. He is at- 
tached to a flagship at least 120 feet 
long, under an admiral aged twenty- 
five, who was, till the other day, third 
mate of a North Atlantic tramp, but 
who now leads a squadron of six 
trawlers to hunt submarines. The 



THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 15 

principle is simple enough. Its appli- 
cation depends on circumstances and 
surroundings. One class of German 
submarines meant for murder off the 
coasts may use a winding and rabbit- 
like track between shoals where the 
choice of water is limited. Their 
career is rarely long, but while it lasts 
moderately exciting. Others, told off 
for deep-sea assassinations, are at- 
tended to quite quietly and without 
any excitement at all. Others, again, 
work the inside of the North Sea, 
making no distinction between neu- 
trals and Allied ships. These carry 
guns, and since their work keeps them 
a good deal on the surface, the Traw- 
ler Fleet, as we know, engages them 
there — the submarine firing, sinking, 
and rising again in unexpected quar- 



16 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

ters; the trawler firing, dodging, and 
trying to ram. The trawlers are 
strongly built, and can stand a great 
deal of punishment. Yet again, other 
German submarines hang about the 
skirts of fishing-fleets and fire into the 
brown of them. When the war was 
young this gave splendidly "frightful" 
results, but for some reason or other 
the game is not as popular as it used 
to be. 

Lastly, there are German sub- 
marines who perish by ways so curious 
and inexplicable that one could almost 
credit the whispered idea (it must 
come from the Scotch skippers) that 
the ghosts of the women drowned 
pilot them to destruction. But what 
form these shadows take — whether of 
"the Lusitania Ladies," or humbler 



THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 17 

stewardesses and hospital nurses — 
and what lights or sounds the thing 
fancies it sees or hears before it is 
blotted out, no man will ever know. 
The main fact is that the work is 
being done. Whether it was neces- 
sary or politic to re-awaken by violence 
every sporting instinct of a sea-going 
people is a question which the enemy 
may have to consider later on. 



Dawn off the Foreland — the young flood 

making 
Jumbled and short and steep — 
Black in the hollows and bright where it's 
breaking — 
Awkward water to sweep. 
"Mines reported in the fairway, 
" Warn all traffic and detain. 
"Sent up Unity, Claribel, Assyrian, Storm- 
cock, and Golden Gain." 

Noon off the Foreland — the first ebb making 

Lumpy and strong in the bight. 
Boom after boom, and the golf-hut shaking 
And the jackdaws wild with fright ! 
"Mines located in the fairway, 
"Boats now working up the chain, 
"Sweepers — Unity, Claribel, Assyrian, 
Stormcock, and Golden Gain." 
19 



20 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

Dusk off the Foreland — the last light going 

And the traffic crowding through, 
And five damned trawlers with their syreens 
blowing 
Heading the whole review ! 
"Sweep completed in the fairway. 
"No more mines remain. 
"Sent back Unity, Claribel, Assyrian, 
Stormcock, and Golden Gain", 



II 

THE AUXILIARIES 

The Trawlers seem to look on mines 
as more or less fairplay. But with 
the torpedo it is otherwise. A Yar- 
mouth man lay on his hatch, his gear 
neatly stowed away below, and told 
me that another Yarmouth boat had 
"gone up," with all hands except one. 
* 'Twas a submarine. Not a mine," 
said he. "They never gave our boys 
no chance. Na! She was a Yar- 
mouth boat — we knew 'em all. They 
never gave the boys no chance." He 
was a submarine hunter, and he il- 
lustrated by means of matches placed 
21 



22 THE FRINGES OP THE FLEET 

at various angles how the blindfold 
business is conducted. "And then," 
he ended, "there's always what he'll 
do. You've got to think that out 
for yourself — while you're working 
above him — same as if 'twas fish." 
I should not care to be hunted for 
the life in shallow waters by a man 
who knows every bank and pot-hole 
of them, even if I had not killed his 
friends the week before. Being nearly 
all fishermen they discuss their work 
in terms of fish, and put in their 
leisure fishing overside, when they 
sometimes pull up ghastly souvenirs. 
But they all want guns. Those who 
have three-pounders clamour for sixes; 
sixes for twelves; and the twelve- 
pound aristocracy dream of four- 
inchers on anti-aircraft mountings 



THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 23 

for the benefit of roving Zeppelins. 
They will all get them in time, and I 
fancy it will be long ere they give 
them up. One West Country mate 
announced that "a gun is a handy 
thing to have aboard — always." "But 
in peace-time? " I said. "Wouldn't 
it be in the way?" 

"We'm used to 'em now," was the 
smiling answer. "Niver go to sea 
again without a gun — / wouldn't — 
if I had my way. It keeps all hands 
pleased-like." 

They talk about men in the Army 
who will never willingly go back to 
civil life. What of the fishermen 
who have tasted something sharper 
than salt water — and what of the 
young third and fourth mates who 
have held independent commands 



24 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

for nine months past? One of them 
said to me quite irrelevantly: "I 
used to be the animal that got up 
the trunks for the women on bag- 
gage-days in the old Bodiam Castle," 
and he mimicked their requests for 
"the large brown box," or "the black 
dress basket," as a freed soul might 
scoff at his old life in the flesh. 



A COMMON SWEEPER" 



My sponsor and chaperon in this 
Elizabethan world of eighteenth- 
century seamen was an A. B. who 
had gone down in the Landrail, as- 
sisted at the Heligoland fight, seen 
the Bliicher sink and the bombs 
dropped on our boats when we tried to 
save the drowning ("Whereby," as 
he said, "those Germans died gott- 



THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 25 

strafin' their own country because 
we didn't wait to be strafed"), and 
has now found more peaceful days 
in an Office ashore. He led me across 
many decks from craft to craft to 
study the various appliances that 
they specialize in. Almost our last 
was what a North Country trawler 
called a "common sweeper," that 
is to say, a mine-sweeper. She was 
at tea in her shirt-sleeves, and she 
protested loudly that there was "noth- 
ing in sweeping." " 'See that wire 
rope?" she said. "Well, it leads 
through that lead to the ship which 
you're sweepin' with. She makes 
her end fast and you make yours. 
Then you sweep together at which- 
ever depth you've agreed upon be- 
tween you, by means of that ar- 



2b THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

rangement there which regulates the 
depth. They give you a glass sort 
o' thing for keepin' your distance 
from the other ship, but that's not 
wanted if you know each other. 
Well, then you sweep, as the sayin' 
is. There's nothin' in it. You 
sweep till this wire rope fouls the 
bloomin' mines. Then you go on 
till they appear on the surface, so 
to say, and then you explode them 
by means of shootin' at 'em with 
that rifle in the gallery there. 
There's nothin' in sweepin' more than 
that." 

"And if you hit a mine?" I asked. 

"You go up — but you hadn't ought 
to hit 'em, if you're careful. The 
thing is to get hold of the first 
mine all right, and then you go on 



THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 27 

to the next, and so on, in a way o' 
speakinV 

"And you can fish, too, 'tween 
times," said a voice from the next 
boat. A man leaned over and re- 
turned a borrowed mug. They talked 
about fishing — notably that once they 
caught some red mullet, which the 
" common sweeper" and his neighbour 
both agreed was "not natural in 
those waters." As for mere sweep- 
ing, it bored them profoundly to 
talk about it. I only learned later 
as part of the natural history of 
mines, that if you rake the tri-nitro- 
toluol by hand out of a German 
mine you develop eruptions and 
skin-poisoning. But on the author- 
ity of two experts, there is nothing 
in sweeping. Nothing whatever! 



28 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 
A BLOCK IN THE TRAFFIC 

Now imagine, not a pistol-shot 
from these crowded quays, a little 
Office hung round with charts that 
are pencilled and noted over various 
shoals and soundings. There is a 
movable list of the boats at work, 
with quaint and domestic names. 
Outside t e window lies the packed 
harbour — outside that again the line 
of traffic up and down — a stately 
cinema-show of six ships to the hour. 
For the moment the film sticks. A 
boat — probably a "common sweeper" 
— reports an obstruction in the traffic 
lane a few miles away. She has 
found and exploded one mine. The 
Office heard the dull boom of it 
before the wireless report came in. 



THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 29 

In all likelihood there is a nest of them 
there. It is possible that a submarine 
may have got in last night between 
certain shoals and laid them out. 
The shoals are being shepherded in 
case she is hidden anywhere, but 
the boundaries of the newly-discov- 
vered mine-area must be fixed and 
the traffic deviated. There is a tramp 
outside with tugs in attendance. She 
has hit something and is leaking 
badly. Where shall she go? The 
Office gives her her destination — 
the harbour is too full for her to settle 
down here. She swings off between 
the faithful tugs. Down coast some 
one asks by wireless if they shall hold 
up their traffic. It is exactly like a 
signaller "offering" a train to the 
next block. "Yes," the Office re- 



30 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

plies. "Wait a while. If it's what 
we think there will be a little delay. 
If it isn't what we think, there will 
be a little longer delay." Mean- 
time, sweepers are nosing round the 
suspected area — "looking for cuc- 
koos' eggs," as a voice suggests; and 
a patrol-boat lathers her way down 
coast to catch and stop anything 
that may be on the move, for skip- 
pers are sometimes rather careless. 
Words begin to drop out of the air 
into the chart-hung Office. "Six and a 
half cables south, fifteen east "of some- 
thing or other. * ■ Mark it well, and tell 
them to work up from there," is the 
order. "Another mine exploded!" 
"Yes, and we heard that too," says the 
Office. "What about the submarine? " 
"Elizabeth Hug gins reports . . ." 



THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 31 

Elizabeth's scandal must be fairly 
high flavoured, for a torpedo-boat 
of immoral aspects slings herself 
out of harbour and hastens to share 
it. If Elizabeth has not spoken the 
truth, there may be words between 
the parties. For the present a pen- 
cilled suggestion seems to cover the 
case, together with a demand, as far 
as one can make out, for "more 
common sweepers." They will be 
forthcoming very shortly. Those at 
work have got the run of the mines 
now, and are busily howking them 
up. A trawler-skipper wishes to 
speak to the Office, "They" have 
ordered him out, but his boiler, most 
of it, is on the quay at the present 
time, and "ye'll remember, it's the 
same wi' my foremast an' port rig- 



32 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

ging, sir." The Office does not pre- 
cisely remember, but if boiler and 
foremast are on the quay the rest 
of the ship had better stay alongside. 
The skipper falls away relieved. (He 
scraped a tramp a few nights ago in 
a bit of a sea.) There is a little 
mutter of gun-fire somewhere across 
the grey water where a fleet is at 
work. A monitor as broad as she 
is long comes back from wherever 
the trouble is, slips through the 
harbour-mouth, all wreathed with 
signals, is received by two motherly 
lighters, and, to all appearance, goes 
to sleep between them. The Office 
does not even look up; for that is 
not in their department. They have 
found a trawler to replace the boil- 
erless one. Her name is slid into 



THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 33 

the rack. The immoral torpedo-boat 
flounces back to her moorings. Evi- 
dently what Elizabeth Huggins said 
was not evidence. The messages and 
replies begin again as the day closes. 

THE NIGHT-PATROL 

Return now to the inner harbour. 
At twilight there was a stir among 
the packed craft like the separation 
of dried tea-leaves in water. The 
swing-bridge across the basin shut 
against us. A boat shot out of the 
jam, took the narrow exit at a fair 
seven knots and rounded into the 
outer harbour with all the pomp of a 
flagship, which was exactly what she 
was. Others followed, breaking away 
from every quarter in silence. Boat 
after boat fell into line — gear stowed 



34 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

away; spars and buoys in order on 
their clean decks; guns cast loose 
and ready; wheel-house windows dark- 
ened, and everything in order for a 
day or a week or a month out. There 
was no word anywhere. The inter- 
rupted foot-traffic stared at them as 
they slid past below. A woman 
beside me waved a hand to a man 
on one of them, and I saw his face 
light as he waved back. The boat 
where they had demonstrated for 
me with matches was the last. Her 
skipper hadn't thought it worth while 
to tell me that he was going that 
evening. Then the line straightened 
up and stood out to sea. 

"You never said this was going to 
happen," I said reproachfully to my 
A.B. 



THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 35 

"No more I did," said he. "It's 
the night-patrol going out. Fact is, 
I'm so used to the bloomin' evolution 
that it never struck me to mention it 
as you might say." 

Next morning I was at service in a 
man-of-war, and even as we came to 
the prayer that the Navy might "be 
a safeguard to such as pass upon the 
sea on their lawful occasions," I saw 
the long procession of traffic resum- 
ing up and down the Channel — six 
ships to the hour. It has been hung 
up for a bit, they said. 



Farewell and adieu to you, Greenwich 
ladies, » 

Farewell and adieu to you, ladies ashore ! 

For we've received orders to work to the 
eastward 

Where we hope in a short time to strafe 'em 
some more. 

We'll duck and we'll dive like little tin turtles. 

We'll duck and we'll dive underneath the 
North Seas, 

Until we strike something that doesn't ex- 
pect us, 

From here to Cuxhaven it's go as you please! 

The first thing we did was to dock in a 

mine-field, 
Which isn't a place where repairs should 

be done; 

37 



38 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

And there we lay doggo in twelve-fathom 

water 
With tri-nitro-toluol hogging our run. 

The next thing we did, we rose under a 

Zeppelin, 
With his shiny big belly half blocking the 

sky. 
But what in the — Heavens can you do with 

six-pounders ? 
So we fired what we had and we bade him 

good-bye. 



SUBMARINES 

The chief business of the Trawler 
Fleet is to attend to the traffic. The 
submarine in her sphere attends to the 
enemy. Like the destroyer, the sub- 
marine has created its own type of offi- 
cer and man — with a language and tra- 
ditions apart from the rest of the Serv- 
ice, and yet at heart unchangingly of 
the Service. Their business is to run 
monstrous risks from earth, air, and 
water, in what, to be of any use, must 
be the coldest of cold blood. 

The commander's is more a one- 
man job, as the crew's is more team 

39 



40 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

work, than any other employment 
afloat. That is why the relations 
between submarine officers and men 
are what they are. They play hourly 
for each other's lives with Death the 
Umpire always at their elbow on tip- 
toe to give them "Out." 

There is a stretch of water, once 
dear to amateur yachtsmen, now 
given over to scouts, submarines, 
destroyers, and, of course, contingents 
of trawlers. We were waiting the 
return of some boats which were due 
to report. A couple surged up the 
still harbour in the afternoon light 
and tied up beside their sisters. 
There climbed out of them three or 
four high-booted, sunken-eyed pirates 
clad in sweaters, under jackets that 
a stoker of the last generation would 



THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 41 

have disowned. This was their first 
chance to compare notes at close 
hand. Together they lamented the 
loss of a Zeppelin — "a perfect mug of 
a Zepp," who had come down very 
low and offered one of them a sitting 
shot. "But what can you do with 
our guns? I gave him what I had, 
and then he started bombing." 

"I know he did," another said. 
"I heard him. That's what brought 
me down to you. I thought he had 
you that last time." 

"No, I was forty foot under when 
he hove out the big 'un. What hap- 
pened to you?" 

"My steering-gear jammed just 
after I went down, and I had to go 
round in circles till I got it straight- 
ened out. But wasn't he a mug!" 



42 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

"Was he the brute with the patch 
on his port side? " a sister-boat de- 
manded. 

"No! This fellow had just been 
hatched. He was almost sitting on 
the water, heaving bombs over." 

"And my blasted steering-gear 
went and chose then to go wrong," the 
other commander mourned. "I 
thought his last little egg was going to 
get me!" 

Half an hour later I was formally in- 
troduced to three or four quite strange, 
quite immaculate officers, freshly 
shaved, and a little tired about the 
eyes, whom I thought I had met before. 

LABOUR AND REFRESHMENT 

Meantime (it was on the hour of 
evening drinks) one of the boats was 



THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 43 

still unaccounted for. No one talked 
of her. They rather discussed motor- 
cars and Admiralty constructors, but 
— it felt like that queer twilight 
watch at the front when the homing 
aeroplanes drop in. Presently a sig- 
naller entered: "V. 42 outside, sir; 
wants to know which channel she shall 
use." "Oh, thank you. Tell her to 
take so-and-so." . . . Mine, I 
remember, was vermouth and bitters, 
and later on V. 42 himself found a soft 
chair and joined the committee of 
instruction. Those next for duty, 
as well as those in training, wished 
to hear what was going on, and who 
had shifted what to where, and how 
certain arrangements had worked. 
They were told in language not to 
be found in any printable book. 



44 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

Questions and answers were alike 
Hebrew to one listener, but he gath- 
ered that every boat carried a second 
in command — a strong, persevering 
youth, who seemed responsible for 
everything that went wrong, from a 
motor cy Under to a torpedo. Then 
somebody touched on the mercantile 
marine and its habits. 

Said one philosopher: "They can't 
be expected to take any more risks 
than they do. / wouldn't, if I was a 
skipper. I'd loose off at any blessed 
periscope I saw." 

"That's all very fine. You wait 
till you've had a patriotic tramp tryin' 
to strafe you at your own back-door," 
said another. 

Some one told a tale of a man with 
a voice, notable even in a Service 



THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 45 

where men are not trained to whisper. 
He was coming back, empty-handed, 
dirty, tired, and best left alone. For 
the peace of the German side he had 
entered our hectic home- waters, where 
the usual tramp shelled, and by mirac- 
ulous luck, crumpled his periscope. 
Another man might have dived, but 
Boanerges kept on rising. Majestic 
and wrathful he rose personally 
through his main hatch, and at 2000 
yards (have I said it was a still day?) 
addressed the tramp. Even at that 
distance she gathered it was a Naval 
officer with a grievance, and by the 
time he ran alongside she was in a 
state of coma, but managed to stam- 
mer: "Well, sir, at least you'll admit 
that our shooting was pretty good." 
"And that," said my informant, 



46 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

"put the lid on!" Boanerges went 
down lest he should be tempted to 
murder, and the tramp affirms she 
heard him rumbling beneath her, like 
an inverted thunderstorm, for fifteen 
minutes. 

"All those tramps ought to be dis- 
armed, a'nd we ought to have all their 
guns," said a voice out of a corner. 

"What? Still worrying over your 
'mug?'" some one replied. 

"He was a mug!" went on the 
man of one idea. "If I'd had a 
couple of twelves even, I could have 
strafed him proper. I don't know 
whether I shall mutiny, or desert, or 
write to the First Sea Lord about it." 

"Strafe all Admiralty constructors 
to begin with. I could build a better 
boat with a 4-inch lathe and a sardine- 



THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 47 

tin than ," the speaker named 

her by letter and number. 

"That's pure jealousy," her com- 
mander explained to the company. 
"Ever since I installed — ahem! — 
my patent electric wash-basin he's 
been intriguin' to get her. Why? 
We know he doesn't wasn. He'd 
only use the basin to keep beer in." 

V 

UNDERWATER WORKS 

However often one meets it, as in 
this war one meets it at every turn, 
one never gets used to the Holy 
Spirit of Man at his job. The "com- 
mon sweeper," growling over his 
mug of tea that there was "nothing 
in sweepin'," and these idly chaffing 
men, new shaved, and attired, from 
the sates of Death which had let 



48 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

them through for the fiftieth time, 
were all of the same fabric — incom- 
prehensible, I should imagine, to the 
enemy. And the stuff held good 
throughout all the world — from the 
Dardanelles to the Baltic, where only 
a little while ago another batch of 
submarines had slipped in and begun 
to be busy. I had spent some of the 
afternoon in looking through reports 
of submarine work in the Sea of 
Marmora. They read like the diary 
of energetic weasels in an over- 
crowded chicken-run, and the results 
for each boat were tabulated some- 
thing like a cricket score. There 
were no maiden overs. One came 
across jewels of price set in the flat 
official phraseology. For example, 
one man who was describing some 



THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 49 

steps he was taking to remedy cer- 
tain defects, interjected casually: "At 
this point I had to go under for a 
little, as a man in a boat was trying 
to grab my periscope with his hand." 
No reference before or after to the 
said man or his fate. Again: '"Came 
across a dhow with a Turkish skipper. 
He seemed so miserable that I let 
him go." And elsewhere in those 
waters, a submarine overhauled a 
steamer full of Turkish passengers, 
some of whom, arguing on their allies' 
lines, promptly leaped overboard. 
Our boat fished them out and returned 
them, for she was not killing civilians. 
In another affair, which included 
several ships (now at the bottom) 
and one submarine, the commander 
relaxes enough to note that: "The 



50 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

men behaved very well under direct 
and flanking fire from rifles at about 
fifteen yards." This was not, I be- 
lieve, the submarine that fought the 
Turkish cavalry on the beach. And 
in addition to matters much more 
marvellous than any I have hinted at, 
the reports deal with repairs and 
shifts and contrivances carried 
through in the face of dangers that 
read like the last delirium of romance. 
One boat went down the Straits and 
found herself rather canted over to 
one side. A mine and chain had 
jammed under her forward diving- 
plane. So far as I made out, she 
shook it off by standing on her head 
and jerking backward; or it may 
have been, for the thing has occurred 
more than once, she merely rose as 



THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 51 

much as she could when she could, 
and then "released it by hand," 
as the official phrase goes. 

FOUR NIGHTMARES 

And who, a few months ago, could 
have invented, or having invented, 
would have dared to print such a 
nightmare as this: There was a boat 
in the North Sea who ran into a net 
and was caught by the nose. She 
rose, still entangled, meaning to cut 
the thing away on the surface. But 
a Zeppelin in waiting saw and bombed 
her, and she had to go down again at 
once — but not too wildly or she would 
get herself more wrapped up than 
ever. She went down, and by slow 
working and weaving and wriggling, 
guided only by guesses at the mean- 



52 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

ing of each scrape and grind of the 
net on her blind forehead, at last 
she drew clear. Then she sat on the 
bottom and thought. The question 
was whether she should go back at 
once and warn her confederates 
against the trap, or wait till the 
destroyers which she knew the Zep- 
pelin would have signalled for, should 
come out to finish her still entangled, 
as they would suppose, in the net? 
It was a simple calculation of com- 
parative speeds and positions, and 
when it was worked out she decided 
to try for the double event. Within 
a few minutes of the time she had 
allowed for them she heard the twit- 
ter of four destroyers' screws quarter- 
ing above her; rose; got her shot in; 
saw one destroyer crumple; hung 



THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 53 

round till another took the wreck in 
tow; said good-bye to the spare brace 
(she was at the end of her supplies), 
and reached the rendezvous in time 
to turn her friends. 

And since we are dealing in night- 
mares, here are two more — one gen- 
uine, the other, mercifully, false. 
There was a boat not only at, but in 
the mouth of a river — well home in 
German territory. She was spotted, 
and went under, her commander per- 
fectly aware that there was not more 
than five feet of water over her 
conning-tower, so that even a torpedo- 
boat, let alone a destroyer, would hit 
it if she came over. But nothing 
hit anything. The search was con- 
ducted on scientific principles while 
they sat on the silt and suffered. 



54 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

Then the commander heard the rasp 
of a wire trawl sweeping over his hull. 
It was not a nice sound, but there 
happened to be a couple of gramo- 
phones aboard, and he turned them 
both on to drown it. And in due 
time that boat got home with every- 
body's hair of just the same colour 
as when they had started! 

The other nightmare arose out of 
silence and imagination. A boat had 
gone to bed on the bottom in a spot 
where she might reasonably expect 
to be looked for, but it was a con- 
venient jumping off, or up, place for 
the work in hand. About the bad 
hour of 2.30 a.m. the commander was 
waked by one of his men, who whis- 
pered to him: "They've got the 
chains on us, sir!" Whether it was 



THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 55 

pure nightmare, an hallucination of 
long wakefulness, something relaxing 
and releasing in that packed box of 
machinery, or the disgustful reality, 
the commander could not tell, but it 
had all the makings of panic in it. 
So the Lord and long training put it 
into his head to reply! "Have they? 
Well, we shan't be coming up till nine 
o'clock this morning. We'll see about 
it then. Turn out that light, please." 

He did not sleep, but the dreamer 
and the others did; and when morn- 
ing came and he gave the order to 
rise, and she rose unhampered, and 
he saw the grey smeared seas from 
above once again, he said it was a 
very refreshing sight. 

Lastly, which is on all fours with 
the gamble of the chase, a man was 



56 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

coming home rather bored after an 
uneventful trip. It was necessary 
for him to sit on the bottom for 
awhile, and there he played patience. 
Of a sudden it struck him, as a vow 
and an omen, that if he worked out 
the next game correctly he would go 
up and strafe something. The cards 
fell all in order. He went up at once 
and found himself alongside a German, 
whom, as he had promised and proph- 
esied to himself, he destroyed. She 
was a mine-layer, and needed only a jar 
to dissipate like a cracked electric-light 
bulb. He was somewhat impressed by 
the contrast between the single-handed 
game 50 feet below, the ascent, the at- 
tack, the amazing result, and when he 
descended again ? his cards just as he 
bad left them. 



The ships destroy us above 
And ensnare us beneath. 

We arise, we lie down, and we move 
In the belly of Death. 

The ships have a thousand eyes 
To mark where we come . . 

And the mirth of a seaport dies 
When our blow gets home. 



51 



II 

SUBMARINES 

I was honoured by a glimpse into 
this veiled life in a boat which was 
merely practising between trips. Sub- 
marines are like cats. They never 
tell "who they were with last night," 
and they sleep as much as they can. 
If you board a submarine off duty 
you generally see a perspective of 
fore-shortened fattish men laid all 
along. The men say that except at 
certain times it is rather an easy 
life, with relaxed regulations about 
smoking, calculated to make a man 

59 



60 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

put on flesh. One requires well- 
padded nerves. Many of the men 
do not appear on deck throughout 
the whole trip. After all, why should 
they if they don't want to? They 
know that they are responsible in 
their department for their comrades' 
lives as their comrades are respon- 
sible for theirs. What's the use of 
flapping about? Better lay in some 
magazines and cigarettes. 

When we set forth there had been 
some trouble m the fairway, and a 
mined neutral, whose misfortune all 
bore with exemplary calm, was ca- 
reened on a near by shoal. 

"Suppose there are more mines 
knocking about?" I suggested. 

"We'll hope there aren't," was the 
soothing reply. "Mines are all Joss. 



THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 61 

You either hit 'em or you don't. 
And if you do, they don't always go 
off. They scrape alongside." 

"What's the etiquette then?" 

"Shut off both propellers and 
hope." 

We were dodging various craft 
down the harbour when a squadron 
of trawlers came out on our beam, at 
that extravagant rate of speed which 
unlimited Government coal always 
leads to. They were led by an ugly, 
upstanding, black-sid ^d buccaneer 
with twelve-pounders. 

"Ah! That's the King of the 
Trawlers. Isn't he carrying dog, too! 
Give him room!" one said. 

We were all in the narrowed har- 
bour mouth together. 

"'There's my youngest daughter. 



62 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

Take a look at her!' " some one 
hummed as a punctilious navy cap slid 
by on a very near bridge. 

" We'll fall in behind him. They're 
going over to the neutral. Then 
they'll sweep. By the bye, did you 
hear about one of the passengers in 
the neutral y ester ' ly. He was taken 
off, of course, t„ a destroyer, and 
the only thing he said was: 'Twenty- 
five time I 'ave insured, but not this 
time. . . . 'Ang it!'" , 

The trawlers lunged ahe^ toward 
the forLjrn neutral. Our destroyer 
nipped past us with Liat high- 
shouldered, terrier-like pouncing ac- 
tion of the newer boats, and went 
ahead. A tramp in ballast, her pro- 
peller half out of water, threshed 
along through the sallow haze. 



THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 63 

"Lord! What a shot!" somebody 
said enviously. The men on the 
little deck looked across at the slow- 
moving silhouette. One of them, a 
cigarette behind his ear, smiled at a 
companion. 

Then we went down — not as they 
go when they are essed (the record, 
I believe, is 50 feet in 50 seconds 
from top to bottom), but genteelly, 
to an orchestra of appropriate sounds, 
roarings and blowings, aud after 
the orders, which come from the 
commander alone, utter siKnce and 
peace. 

"There's the bottom. We bumped 
at fifty — fifty-two," he said. 

"I didn't feel it." 

' ' We'll try again. Watch the gauge 
and you'll see it flick a little." 



64 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 
THE PRACTICE OF THE ART 

It may have been so, but I was more 
interested in the faces, and above all 
the eyes, all down the length of her. 
It was to them, of course, the simplest 
of manoeuvres. They dropped into 
gear as no machine could; but the 
training of years and the experience 
of the year leaped up behind those 
steady eyes under the electrics in 
the shadow of the tall motors, be- 
tween the pipes and the curved hull, 
or glued to their special gauges. One 
forgot the bodies altogether — but one 
will never forget the eyes or the en- 
nobled faces. One man I remember 
in particular. On deck his was no 
more than a grave, rather striking 
countenance, cast in the unmistak- 



THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 65 

able petty officer's mould. Below, 
as I saw him in profile handling a 
vital control, he looked like the 
Doge of Venice; the Prior of some 
sternly-ruled monastic order; an old- 
time Pope — anything that signifies 
trained and stored intellectual power 
utterly and ascetically devoted to 
some vast impersonal end. And so 
with a much younger man, who 
changed into such a monk as Frank 
Dicksee used to draw. Only a couple 
of torpedo-men, not being in gear for 
the moment, read an illustrated paper. 
Their time did not come till we went 
up and got to business, which meant 
firing at our destroyer, and, I think, 
keeping out of the light of a friend's 
torpedoes. 

The attack and everything con- 



66 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

nected with it is solely the com- 
mander's affair. He is the only one 
who gets any fun at all — since he is 
the eye, the brain, and the hand of 
the whole — this single figure at the 
periscope. The second in command 
heaves sighs, and prays that the 
dummy torpedo (there is less trouble 
about the live ones) will go off all 
right, or he'll be told about it. The 
others wait and follow the quick 
run of orders. It is, if not a con- 
vention, a fairly established custom 
that the commander shall inferen- 
tially give his world some idea of what 
is going on. At least, I only heard 
of one man who says nothing what- 
ever, and doesn't even wriggle his 
shoulders when he is on the sight. 
The others soliloquize, etc., accord- 



THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 67 

ing to their temperament; and the 
periscope is as revealing as golf. 

Submarines nowadays are expected 
to look out for themselves more than 
at the old practices, when the de- 
stroyers walked circumspectly. We 
dived and circulated under water for 
a while, and then rose for a sight — 
something like this: "Up a little — 
up! Up still! Where the deuce has 
he got to — Ah ! (Half a dozen orders 
as to helm and depth of descent, and 
a pause broken by a drumming noise 
somewhere above, which increases 
and passes away.) That's better! 
Up again! (This refers to the peri- 
scope.) Yes. Ah! No, we don't 
think! All right! Keep her down, 
damn it! Umm! That ought to be 
nineteen knots. . . . Dirty trick! 



68 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

He's changing speed. No, he isn't. 
He's all right. Ready forward there! 
(A valve sputters and drips, the 
torpedo-men crouch over their tubes 
and nod to themselves. Their faces 
have changed now.) He hasn't 
spotted us yet. We'll ju-ust — (more 
helm and depth orders, but specially 
helm) — 'Wish we were working a 
beam-tube. Ne'er mind! Up! (A 
last string of orders.) Six hundred, 
and he doesn't see us! Fire!" 

The dummy left; the second in 
command cocked one ear and looked 
relieved. Up we rose; the wet air 
and spray spattered through the 
hatch; the destroyer swung off to 
retrieve the dummy. 

"Careless brutes destroyers are," 
said one officer. " That fellow nearly 



THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 69 

walked over us just now. Did you 
notice?" 

The commander was playing his 
game out over again — stroke by 
stroke. "With a beam-tube I'd ha' 
strafed him amidship," he concluded. 

"Why didn't you then?" I asked. 

There were loads of shiny reasons, 
which reminded me that we were at 
war and cleared for action, and that 
the interlude had been merely play. 
A companion rose alongside and 
wanted to know whether we had 
seen anything of her dummy. 

"No. But we heard it," was the 
short answer. 

I was rather annoyed, because I 
had seen that particular daughter oi 
destruction on the stocks only a short 
time ago, and here she was grown up 



70 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

and talking about her missing chil- 
dren ! 

In the harbour again, one found 
more submarines, all patterns and 
makes and sizes, with rumours of 
yet more and larger to follow. Nat- 
urally their men say that we are only 
at the beginning of the submarine. 
We shall have them presently for all 
purposes. 

THE MAN AND THE WORK 

Now here is a mystery of the Serv- 
ice. 

A man gets a boat which for two 
years becomes his very self — 

His morning hope, his evening dream, 
His joy throughout the day. 

With him is a second in command, 
an engineer, and some others. They 



THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 71 

prove each other's souls habitually 
every few days, by the direct test of 
peril, till they act, think, and endure 
as a unit, in and with the boat. That 
commander is transferred to another 
boat. He tries to take with him if 
he can, which he can't, as many of 
his other selves as possible. He is 
pitched into a new type twice the 
size of the old one, with three times 
as many gadgets, an unexplored 
temperament and unknown leanings. 
After his first trip he comes back 
clamouring for the head of her con- 
structor, of his own second in com- 
mand, his engineer, his cox, and a 
few other ratings. They for their 
part wish him dead on the beach, 
because, last commission with So- 
and-so, nothing ever went wrong 



72 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

anywhere. A fortnight later you 
can remind the commander of what 
he said, and he will deny every word of 
it. She's not, he says, so very vile — 
things considered, barring her five- 
ton torpedo-derricks, the abomina- 
tions of her wireless, and the tropical 
temperature of her beer-lockers. All 
of which signifies that the new boat 
has found her soul, and her com- 
mander would not change her for 
battle-cruisers. Therefore, that he 
may remember he is the Service and 
not a branch of it, he is after certain 
seasons shifted to a battle-cruiser, 
where he lives in a blaze of admirals 
and aiguillettes, responsible for vast 
decks and crypt-like flats, a student 
of extended above-water tactics, 
thinking in tens of thousands of 



THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 73 

yards instead of his modest but deadly 
three to twelve hundred. 

And the man who takes his place 
straightway forgets that he ever 
looked down on great rollers from a 
sixty-foot bridge under the whole 
breadth of heaven, but crawls and 
climbs and dives through conning- 
towers with those same waves wet 
in his neck, and when the cruisers pass 
him, tearing the deep open in half a 
gale, thanks God he is not as they 
are, and goes to bed beneath their 
distracted keels. 



EXPERT OPINIONS 

"But submarine work is cold- 
blooded business." 

(This was at a little session in a 



74 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

green-curtained "wardroom" cum 
owner's cabin.) 

"Then there's no truth in the yarn 
that you can feel when the torpedo's 
going to get. home?" I asked. 

"Not a word. You sometimes 
see it get home, or miss, as the case 
may be. Of course, it's never your 
fault if it misses. It's all your second- 
in-command. " 

"That's true, too," said the second. 
"I catch it all round. That's what 
I am here for." 

"And what about the third man?" 
There was one aboard at the time. 

"He generally comes from a smaller 
boat, to pick up real work — if he can 
suppress his intellect and doesn't 
talk 'last commission." 

The third hand promptly denied 



THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 75 

the possession of any intellect, and 
was quite dumb about his last boat. 

"And the men?" 

"They train on, too. They train 
each other. Yes, one gets to know 
'em about as well as they get to know 
us. Up topside, a man can take you 
in — take himself in — for months; for 
half a commission, p'rhaps. Down 
below he can't. It's all in cold blood 
— not like at the front, where they 
have something exciting all the time." 

"Then bumping mines isn't excit- 
ing?" 

"Not one little bit. You can't 
bump back at 'em. Even with a 
Zepp " 

"Oh, now and then," one inter- 
rupted, and they laughed as they 
explained. 



76 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

"Yes, that was rather funny. One 
of our boats came up slap underneath 
a low Zepp. 'Looked for the sky, 
you know, and couldn't see anything 
except this fat, shining belly almost 
on top of 'em. Luckily, it wasn't 
the Zepp's stingin' end. So our boat 
went to windward and kept just 
awash. There was a bit of a sea, 
and the Zepp had to work against the 
wind. (They don't like that.) Our 
boat sent a man to the gun. He was 
pretty well drowned, of course, but 
he hung on, choking and spitting, and 
held his breath, and got in shots 
where he could. This Zepp was 
strafing bombs about for all she was 
worth, and — who was it? — Macart- 
ney, I think, potting at her between 
dives; and naturally all hands wanted 



THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 77 

to look at the performance, so about 
half the North Sea flopped down be- 
low and — oh, they had a Charlie 
Chaplin time of it! Well, somehow, 
Macartney managed to rip the Zepp 
a bit, and she went to leeward with a 
list on her. We saw her a fortnight 
later with a patch on her port side. 
Oh, if Fritz only fought clean, this 
wouldn't be half a bad show. But 
Fritz can't fight clean." 

"And we can't do what he does — 
even if we were allowed to," one said. 

"No, we can't. Tisn't done. We 
have to fish Fritz out of the water, 
dry him, and give him cocktails, and 
send him to Donnington Hall." 

"And what does Fritz do?" I 
asked. 

"He sputters and clicks and bows. 



78 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

He has all the correct motions, you 
know; but, of course, when he's 
your prisoner you can't tell him what 
he really is." 

"And do you suppose Fritz under- 
stands any of it? " I went on. 

"No. Or he wouldn't have lusi- 
taniaed. This war was his first 
chance of making his name, and he 
chucked it all away for the sake of 
showin' off as a foul Gottstrafer." 

x\nd they talked of that hour of 
the night when submarines come to 
the top like mermaids to get and 
give information; of boats whose 
business it is to fire as much and to 
splash about as aggressively as pos- 
sible; and of other boats who avoid 
any sort of display — dumb boats 
watching and relieving watch, with 



THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 79 

their periscope just showing like a 
crocodile's eye, at the back of islands 
and the mouths of channels where 
something may some day move out 
in procession to its doom. 



Be well assured that on our side 
Our challenged oceans fight, 
Though headlong wind and leaping tide 

Make us their sport to-night. 
Through force of weather, not of war, 

In jeopardy we steer. 
Then welcome Fate's discourtesy 
Whereby it shall appear 

How in all time of our distress 

As in our triumph too. 

The game is more than the player of 

the game, 
And the ship is more than the crew! 

Be well assured, though wave and wind 

Have mightier blows in store, 
That we who keep the watch assigned 

Must stand to it the more; 
81 



82 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

And as our streaming bows dismiss 

Each billow's baulked career, 
Sing welcome Fate's discourtesy 
Whereby it is made clear 

How in all time of our distress 

As in our triumph too. 

The game is more than the player of 

the game, 
And the ship is more than the crew! 

Be well assured, though in our power 

Is nothing left to give 
But time and place to meet the hour 

And leave to strive to live, 
Till these dissolve our order holds, 

Our Service binds us here. 
Then welcome Fate's discourtesy 
Whereby it is made clear 

How in all time of our distress 

And our deliverance too, 

The game is more than the player of 

the game, 
And the ship is more tlian the crew! 



PATROLS 

On the edge of the North Sea sits 
an Admiral in charge of a stretch of 
coast without lights or marks, along 
which the traffic moves much as 
usual. In front of him there is 
nothing but the east wind, the enemy, 
and some few our ships. Behind 
him there are towns, with M. P.'s 
attached, who a little while ago didn't 
see the reason for certain lighting 
orders. When a Zeppelin or two 
came, they saw. Left and right 
of him are enormous docks, with vast 
crowded sheds, miles of stone-faced 

83 



84 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

quay-edges, loaded with all manner 
of supplies and crowded with mixed 
shipping. 

In this exalted world one met Staff- 
Captains, Staff-Commanders, Staff- 
Lieutenants, and Secretaries, with 
Paymasters so senior that they almost 
ranked with Admirals. There were 
Warrant Officers, too, who long ago 
gave up splashing about decks bare- 
foot, and now check and issue stores 
to the ravenous, untruthful fleets. 
Said one of these, guarding a collec- 
tion of desirable things, to a cross 
between a sick-bay attendant and a 
junior writer (but he was really an 
expert burglar), "No! An' you can 
tell Mr. So-and-so, with my compli- 
ments, that the storekeeper's gone 
away — right away — with the key of 



THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 85 

these stores in his pocket. Under- 
stand me? In his trousers pocket." 

He snorted at my next question. 

"Do I know any destroy er-looten- 
ants?" said he. "This coast's rank 
with 'em! Destroyer-lootenants are 
born stealing. It's a mercy they's too 
busy to practise forgery, or I'd be in 
gaol. Engineer-Commanders? En- 
gineer-Lootenants? They're worse! 
Look here! If my own 
mother was to come to me beggin' 
brass screws for her own coffin, I'd 
— I'd think twice before I'd oblige 
the old lady. War's war, I grant 
you that; but what I've got to con- 
tend with is crime." 

I referred to him a case of con- 
science in which every one concerned 
acted exactly as he should, and it 



86 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

nearly ended in murder. During a 
lengthy action, the working of a gun 
was hampered by some empty car- 
tridge cases which the lieutenant in 
charge made signs (no man could hear 
his neighbour speak just then) should 
be hove overboard. Upon which the 
gunner rushed forward and made other 
signs that they were "on charge," 
and must be tallied and accounted 
for. He, too, was trained in a strict 
school. Upon which the lieutenant, 
but that he was busy, would have 
slain the gunner for refusing orders 
in action. Afterwards he wanted him 
shot by court-martial. But every 
one was voiceless by then, and could 
only mouth and croak at each other, 
till somebody laughed, and the pe- 
dantic gunner was spared. 



THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 87 

"Well, that's what you might 
fairly call a naval crux," said my 
friend among the stores. "The Loo- 
tenant was right. 'Mustn't refuse 
orders in action. The Gunner was 
right. Empty cases are on charge. 
No one ought to chuck 'em away 
that way, but . . . Damn it, 
they were all of 'em right! It ought 
to ha' been a marine. Then they 
could have killed him and preserved 
discipline at the same time." 

A LITTLE THEORY 

The problem of this coast resolves 
itself into keeping touch with the 
enemy's movements; in preparing 
matters to trap and hinder him when 
he moves, and in so entertaining him 
that he shall not have time to draw 



88 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

clear before a blow descends on him 
from another quarter. There are 
then three lines of defence: the outer, 
the inner, and the home waters. 
The traffic and fishing are always with 
us. 

The blackboard idea of it is al- 
ways to have stronger forces more 
immediately available everywhere 
than those the enemy can send, x 
German submarines draw a English 
destroyers. Then x calls x +y to deal 
with a, who, in turn, calls up b> a 
scout, and possibly a 2 , with a fair 
chance that if x-\-y-\-z (a Zeppelin) 
carry on they will run into a 2 -\-b 2 -\-c 
cruisers. At this point, the equation 
generally stops; if it continued, it 
would end mathematically in the 
whole of the German Fleet coming 



THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 89 

out. Then another factor which we 
may call the Grand Fleet would 
come from another place. To change 
the comparisons: the Grand Fleet 
is the "strong left" ready to give the 
knockout blow on the point of the 
chin when the head is thrown up. 
The other fleets and other arrange- 
ments threaten the enemy's solar 
plexus and stomach. Somewhere in 
relation to the Grand Fleet lies the 
"blockading" cordon which examines 
neutral traffic. It could be drawn 
as tight as a Turkish bowstring, but 
for reasons which we may arrive at 
after the war, it does not seem to have 
been so drawn up to date. 

The enemy lies behind his mines, 
and ours, raids our coasts when he 
sees a chance, and kills seagoing 



90 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

civilians at sight or guess, with intent 
to terrify. Most sailor-men are 
mixed up with a woman or two; a 
fair percentage of them have seen 
men drown. They can realize what 
it is when women go down choking in 
horrible tangles and heavings of dra- 
peries. To say that the enemy has cut 
himself from the fellowship of all who 
use the seas is rather understating 
the case. As a man observed 
thoughtfully: "You can't look at 
any water now without seeing 'Lusi- 
tania' sprawlin' all across it. And 
just think of those words, * North- 
German Lloyd,' ' Hamburg- Amerika ' 
and such things, in the time to come. 
They simply mustn't be." 

He was an elderly trawler, re- 
spectable as they make them, who, 



THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 91 

after many years of fishing, had dis- 
covered his real vocation. "I never 
thought I'd like killin' men," he 
reflected. "Never seemed to be any 
o' my dooty. But it is — and I 
do!" 

A great deal of the East Coast 
work concerns mine-fields — ours and 
the enemy's — both of which shift 
as occasion requires. We search for 
and root out the enemy's mines; they 
do the like by us. It is a perpetual 
game of finding, springing, and laying 
traps on the least as well as the most 
likely runaways that ships use — such 
sea snaring and wiring as the world 
never dreamt of. We are hampered 
in this, because our Navy respects 
neutrals; and spends a great deal of 
its time in making their path safe 



92 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

for them. The enemy does not. 
He blows them up, because that cows 
and impresses them, and so adds to 
his prestige. 

DEATH AND THE DESTROYER 

The easiest way of finding a mine- 
field is to steam into it, on the edge of 
night for choice, with a steep sea run- 
ning, for that brings the bows down 
like a chopper on the detonating- 
horns. Some boats have enjoyed 
this experience and still live. There 
was one destroyer (and there may 
have been others since) who came 
through twenty-four hours of highly 
compressed life. She had an idea that 
there was a mine-field somewhere 
about, and left her companions be- 
hind while she explored. The 



THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 93 

weather was dead calm, and she 
walked delicately. She saw one 
Scandinavian steamer blow up a 
couple of miles away, rescued the 
skipper and some hands; saw another 
neutral, which she could not reach 
till all was over, skied in another 
direction; and, between her life- 
saving efforts and her natural curi- 
osity, got herself as thoroughly mixed 
up with the field as a camel among 
tent-ropes. A destroyer's bows are 
very fine, and her sides are very 
straight. This causes her to cleave 
the wave with the minimum of dis- 
turbance, and this boat had no desire 
to cleave anything else. None the 
less, from time to time, she heard a 
mine grate, or tinkle, or jar (I could 
not arrive at the precise note it 



94 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

strikes, but they say it is unpleasant) 
on her plates. Sometimes she would 
be free of them for a long while, and 
began to hope she was clear. At other 
times they were numerous, but when 
at last she seemed to have worried out 
of the danger zone, lieutenant and 
sub together left the bridge for a cup 
of tea. ("In those days we took 
mines very seriously, you know.") 
As they were in act to drink, they 
heard the hateful sound again just 
outside the wardroom. Both put 
their cups down with extreme care, 
little fingers extended ("We felt as 
if they might blow up, too"), and tip- 
toed on deck, where they met the 
foc'sle also on tip-toe. They pulled 
themselves together, and asked 
severely what the foc'sle thought it 



THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 95 

was doing. "Beg pardon, sir, but 
there's another of those blighters 
tap-tapping alongside, our end." 
They all waited and listened to their 
common coffin being nailed by Death 
himself. But the things bumped 
away. At this point they thought 
it only decent to invite the rescued 
skipper, warm and blanketed in one 
of their bunks, to step up and do any 
further perishing in the open. 

"No, thank you," said he. "Last 
time I was blown up in my bunk, too. 
That was all right. So I think, now, 
too, I stay in my bunk here. It is 
cold upstairs." 

Somehow or other they got out of 
the mess after all. "Yes, we used to 
take mines awfully seriously in those 
days. One comfort is, Fritz'll take 



96 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

them seriously when he comes out. 
Fritz don't like mines." 

" Who does? " I wanted to know. 

"If you'd been here a little while 
ago, you'd seen a Commander comin' 
in with a big 'un slung under his 
counter. He brought the beastly 
thing in to analyse. The rest of his 
squadron followed at two-knot inter- 
vals, and everything in harbour that 
had steam up scattered." 

THE ADMIRABLE COMMANDER 

Presently I had the honour to meet 
a Lieutenant-Commander- Admiral 
who had retired from the service, but, 
like others, had turned out again at 
the first flash of the guns, and now 
commands — he who had great ships 
erupting at his least signal — a squad- 



THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 97 

ron of trawlers for the protection of 
the Dogger Bank Fleet. At present 
prices — let alone the chance of the 
paying submarine — men would fish 
in much warmer places. His flagship 
is a multi-millionaire's private yacht. 
In her mixture of stark, carpetless, 
curtainless, carbolised present with 
voluptuously curved, broad-decked, 
easy-stairwayed past, she might be 
Queen Guinevere in the convent at 
Amesbury. And her Lieutenant- 
Commander, most careful to pay all 
due compliments to Admirals who 
were midshipmen when he was a 
Commander, leads a congregation of 
very hard men indeed. They do 
precisely what he tells them to, and 
with him go through strange ex- 
periences, because they love him and 



98 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

because his language is volcanic and 
wonderful — what you might call 
Popocatapocalyptic. I saw the Old 
Navy making ready to lead out the 
New under a grey sky and a falling 
glass — the wisdom and cunning of 
the old man backed up by the passion 
and power of the younger breed, and 
the discipline which had been his soul 
for half a century binding them all. 

"What'll he do this time?" I asked 
of one who might know. 

"He'll cruise between Two and 
Three East; but if you'll tell me what he 
won't do, it 'ud be more to the point! 
He's mine-hunting, I expect, just now." 

WASTED MATERIAL 

Here is a digression suggested by 
the sight of a man I had known in 



THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET DM 

other scenes, despatch-riding round a 
fleet in a petrol-launch. There are 
many of his type, yachtsmen of sorts 
accustomed to take chances, who do 
not hold master's certificates and 
cannot be given sea-going commands. 
Like my friend, they do general 
utility — often in their own boats. 
This is a waste of good material. 
Nobody wants amateur navigators — 
the traffic lanes are none too wide 
as it is. But these gentlemen ought 
to be distributed among the Trawler 
Fleet as strictly combatant officers. 
A trawler skipper may be an excel- 
lent seaman, but slow with a sub- 
marine shelling and diving, or in 
cutting out enemy trawlers. The 
young ones who can master Q. F. work 
in a very short time would — though 



100 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

there might be friction, a court- 
martial or two, and probably losses at 
first — pay for their keep. Even a 
hundred or so of amateurs, more or 
less controlled by their squadron 
commanders, would make a happy 
beginning, and I am sure they would 
all be extremely grateful. 



Where the East wind is brewed fresh and 
fresh every morning, 
And the balmy night-breezes blow straight 
from the Pole, 
I heard a destroyer sing: " What an enjoya- 
ble life does one lead on the North Sea 
Patrol! 



" To blow things to bits is our business (and 
Fritz's) , 
Which means there are mine-fields wher- 
ever you stroll. 
Unless youve 'particular wish to die quick 
you 11 avoid steering close to the North 
Sea Patrol. 

101 



102 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

"We warn from disaster the mercantile 
master 
Who takes in high dudgeon our life- 
saving role, 
For every one's grousing at docking and 
dowsing 
The marks and the lights on the North 
Sea Patroir 

[Twelve verses omitted.] 

So swept but surviving, half drowned but 
still driving, 
I watched her head out through the swell 
off the shoal. 
And I heard her propellers roar: "Write 
to poor fellers 
Who run such a Hell as the North Sea 
Patrol!" 



II 

PATROLS 

The great basins were crammed 
with craft of kinds never known before 
on any Navy List. Some were as 
they were born, others had been 
converted, and a multitude have 
been designed for special cases. The 
Navy prepares against all contin- 
gencies by land, sea, and air. It was 
a relief to meet a batch of compre- 
hensible destroyers and to drop again 
into the little mouse- trap wardrooms, 
which are as large-hearted as all our 
oceans. The men one used to know 

as destroyer-lieutenants ("born steal- 
103 



104 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

ing") are serious Commanders and 
Captains to-day, but their sons, Lieu- 
tenants in command and Lieutenant- 
Commanders, do follow them. The 
sea in peace is a hard life; war only 
sketches an extra line or two round 
the young mouths. The routine of 
ships always ready for action is so 
part of the blood now that no one 
notices anything except the absence 
of formality and of the "crimes' ' of 
peace. What Warrant Officers used 
to say at length is cut down to a 
grunt. What the sailor-man did not 
know and expected to have told him, 
does not exist. He has done it all too 
often at sea and ashore. 

I watched a little party working 
under a leading hand at a job which, 
eighteen months ago, would have 



THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 105 

required a Gunner in charge. It was 
comic to see his orders trying to over- 
take the execution of them. Rat- 
ings coming aboard carried them- 
selves with a (to me) new swing — 
not swank, but consciousness of 
adequacy. The high, dark foc'sles 
which, thank goodness, are only 
washed twice a week, received them 
and their bags, and they turned-to 
on the instant as a man picks up 
his life at home. Like the submarine 
crew they come to be a breed apart 
— double- join ted, extra-toed, with 
brazen bowels and no sort of nerves. 

It is the same in the engine-room, 
when the ships come in for their 
regular looking-over. Those who love 
them, which you would never guess 
from the language, know exactly 



106 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

what they need, and get it without 
fuss. Everything that steams has 
her individual peculiarity, and the 
great thing is, at overhaul, to keep to 
it and not develop a new one. If, 
for example, through some trick of 
her screws not synchronising, a de- 
stroyer always casts to port when she 
goes astern, do not let any zealous 
soul try to make her run true, or you 
will have to learn her helm all over 
again. And it is vital that you 
should know exactly what your ship 
is going to do three seconds before 
she does it. Similarly with men. 
If any one, from Lieutenant-Com- 
mander to stoker, changes his per- 
sonal trick or habit — ev fi the manner 
in which he clutches his chin or 
caresses his nose at a crisis — the 



THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 107 

matter must be carefully considered 
in this world where each is trustee for 
his neighbour's life and, vastly more 
important, the corporate honour. 

"What are the destroyers doing 
just now?" I asked. 

"Oh — running about — much the 
same as usual." 

The Navy hasn't the least objec- 
tion to telling one everything that 
it is doing. Unfortunately, it speaks 
its own language, which is incom- 
prehensible to the civilian. But 
you will find it all in "The Channel 
Pilot" and "The Riddle of the 
Sands." 

It is a foul coast, hairy with cur- 
rents and lps, and mottled with 
shoals and rocks. Practically the 
same men hold on here in the same 



108 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

ships, with much the same crews, 
for months and months. A most 
senior officer told me that they 
were "good boys" — on reflection, 
"quite good boys" — but neither he 
nor the flags on his chart explained 
how they managed their lightless, 
unmarked navigations through black 
night, blinding rain, and the crazy, 
rebounding North Sea gales. They 
themselves ascribe it to Joss that 
they have not piled up their ships 
a hundred times. 

"I expect it must be because we're 
always dodging about over the same 
ground. One gets to smell it. We've 
bumped pretty hard, of course, but 
we haven't expended much up to 
date. You never know your luck 
on patrol, though." 



THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 109 
THE NATURE OF THE BEAST 

Personally, though they have been 
true friends to me, I loathe destroyers, 
and all the raw, racking, ricochet- 
ting life that goes with them — the 
smell of the wet "lammies" and damp 
wardroom cushions; the galley- 
chimney smoking out the bridge; the 
obstacle-strewn deck; and the per- 
vading beastliness of oil, grit, and 
greasy iron. Even at moorings they 
shiver and sidle like half-backed 
horses. At sea they will neither 
rise up and fly clear like the hydro- 
planes, nor dive and be done with 
it like the submarines, but imitate 
the vices of both. A scientist of the 
lower deck describes them as: "Half 
switchback, half water-chute, and 



110 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

Hell continuous." Their only merit, 
from a landsman's point of view, is 
that they can crumple themselves up 
from stem to bridge and (I have seen 
it) stit get home. But one does not 
breathe these compliments to their 
commanders. Other destroyers may 
be — they will point them out to you 
— poisv jus bags of tricks, but their 
own command — never! Is she high- 
bowed? That is the only type which 
over-rides the seas instead of smother- 
ing. Is she low? Low bows glide 
through the water where those collier- 
nosed brutes smash it open. Is she 
mucked up with submarine-catchers? 
They rather improve her trim. No 
other ship has them. Have they 
been denied to her? Thank Heaven, 
we go to sea without a fish-curing 



THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 111 

plant on deck. Does she roll, even 
for her class? She is drier than 
Dreadnoughts. Is she permanently 
and infernally wet? Stiff, sir- -stiff: 
the first requisite of a gun-p'atform. 

"service as requisite" 

Thus the Csesars and their fortunes 
put out to sea with their s.bs and 
their sad-eyed engineers, and their 
long-suffering signallers — I do not 
even know the technical name of the 
sin which causes a man to be born a 
destroyer-signaller in this life — and 
the little yellow shells stuck all about 
where they can be easiest reached. 
The rest of their acts is written for 
the information of the proper au- 
thorities. It reads like a page of 
Todhunter. But the masters of 



112 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

merchant-ships could tell more of 
eyeless shapes, barely outlined on the 
foam of their own arrest, who shout 
orders through the thick gloom along- 
side. The strayed and anxious 
neutral knows them when their 
searchlights pin him across the deep, 
or their syrens answer the last yelp 
of his as steam goes out of his tor- 
pedoed boilers. They stand by to 
catch and soothe him in his pyjamas 
at the gangway, collect his scattered 
lifeboats, and see a warm drink into 
him before they turn to hunt the 
slayer. The drifters, punching and 
reeling up and down their ten-mile 
line of traps; the outer trawlers, 
drawing the very teeth of Death with 
water-sodden fingers, are grateful for 
their low, guarded signals; and when 



THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 113 

the Zeppelin's revealing star-shell 
cracks darkness open above him, the 
answering crack of the invincible 
destroyers' guns comforts the busy 
mine-layers. Big cruisers talk to 
them, too; and, what is more, they 
talk back to the cruisers. Some- 
times they draw fire — pinkish spurts 
of light — a long way off, where Fritz 
is trying to coax them over a mine- 
field he has just laid; or they steal 
on Fritz in the midst of his job, and 
the horizon rings with barking, which 
the inevitable neutral who saw it all 
reports as "a heavy fleet action in 
the North Sea." The sea after dark 
can be as alive as the woods of sum- 
mer nights. Everything is exactly 
where you don't expect it, and the 
shyest creatures are the farthest away 



114 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

from their holes. Things boom over- 
head like bitterns, or scutter along- 
side like hares, or arise dripping and 
hissing from below like otters. It 
is the destroyers' business to find out 
what their business may be througli 
al 1 the long night, and to help or 
hinder accordingly. Dawn sees them 
pitch-poling insanely between head- 
seas, or hanging on to bridges that 
sweep like scythes from one forlorn 
horizon to the other. A homeward- 
bound submarine chooses this hour 
to rise, very ostentatiously, and sig- 
nals by hand to a lieutenant in com- 
mand. (They were the same term at 
Dartmouth, and same first ship.) 

"What's he sayin'? Secure that 
gun, will you? 'Can't hear oneself 
speak." The gun is a bit noisy on 



THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 115 

its cone, but that isn't the reason for 
the destroyer-lieutenant's short tem- 
per. ( 

"Says he's goin' down, sir," the 
signaller replies. What the sub- 
marine had spelt out, and everybody 
knows it, was: "Cannot approve of 
this extremely frightful weather. Am 
going to bye-bye." 

"Well!" snaps the lieutenant to 
his signaller, "what are you grinning 
at?" The submarine has hung on 
to ask if the destroyer will "kiss her 
and whisper good-night." A break- 
ing sea smacks her tower in the 
middle of the insult. She closes like 
an oyster, but — just too late. Habet 1 
There must be a quarter of a ton of 
water somewhere down below, on its 
way to her ticklish batteries. 



116 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

"What a wag!" says the signaller, 
dreamily. "Well, 'e can't say 'e 
didn't get 'is little kiss." 

The lieutenant in command smiles. 
The sea is a beast, but a just beast. 

RACIAL UNTRUTHS 

This is trivial enough, but what 
would you have? If Admirals will 
not strike the proper attitudes, nor 
lieutenants emit the appropriate sen- 
timents, one is forced back on the 
truth, which is that the men at the 
heart of great matters in our Em- 
pire are mostly of an even simplicity. 
From the advertising point of view 
they are stupid, but the breed has 
always been stupid in this depart- 
ment. It may be due, as our enemies 
assert, to our racial snobbery, or, as 



THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 117 

others hold, to a certain God-given 
lack of imagination which saves us 
from being over-concerned at the 
effects of our appearances on others. 
Either way, it deceives the enemies' 
people more than any calculated lie. 
When you come to think of it, though 
the English are the worst paper- 
work and viva voce liars in the world, 
they have been rigorously trained 
since their early youth to live and 
act lies for the comfort of the society 
in which they move, and so for their 
own comfort. The result in this 
war is interesting. 

It is no lie that at the present 
moment we hold all the seas in the 
hollow of our hands. For that reason 
we shuffle over them shame-faced 
and apologetic, making arrangements 



118 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

here and flagrant compromises there, 
in order to give substance to the 
lie that we have dropped fortuitously 
into this high seat and are looking 
round the world for some one to 
resign it to. Nor is it any lie that, 
had we used the Navy's bare fist 
instead of its gloved hand from the 
beginning, we could in all likelihood 
have shortened the war. That being 
so, we elected to dab and peck at 
and half -strangle the enemy, to let 
him go and choke him again. It is 
no lie that we continue on our inex- 
plicable path animated, we will try 
to believe till other proof is given, 
by a cloudy idea of alleviating or 
mitigating something for somebody 
— not ourselves. [Here, of course, 
is where our racial snobbery comes 



THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 119 

in, which makes the German gibber. 
I cannot understand why he has not 
accused us to our Allies of having 
secret commercial understandings 
with him.] For that reason, we shall 
finish the German eagle as the mer- 
ciful lady killed the chicken. It 
took her the whole afternoon, and 
then, you will remember, the carcase 
had to be thrown away. 

Meantime, there is a large and 
unlovely water, inhabited by plain 
men in severe boats, who endure 
cold, exposure, wet, and monotony 
almost as heavy as their respon- 
sibilities. Charge them with heroism 
— but that needs heroism, indeed! 
Accuse them of patriotism, they 
become ribald. Examine into the 
records of the miraculous work they 



120 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

have done and are doing. They 
will assist you, but with perfect 
sincerity they will make as light 
of the valour and forethought shown 
as of the ends they have gained for 
mankind. The Service takes all work 
for granted. It knew long ago that 
certain things would have to be 
done, and it did its best to be ready 
for them. When it disappeared over 
the sky-line for manoeuvres it was 
practising — always practising; trying 
its men and stuff and throwing out 
what could not take the strain. 
That is why, when war came, only 
a few names had to be changed, 
and those chiefly for the sake of the 
body, not of the spirit. And the 
Seniors who hold the key to our 
plans and know what will be done 



THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 121 

if things happen, and what links 
wear thin in the many chains, they 
are of one fibre and speech with the 
Juniors and the lower deck and all 
the rest who come out of the un- 
demonstrative households ashore. 
"Here is the situation as it exists 
now," say the Seniors. "This is 
what we do to meet it. Look and 
count and measure and judge for 
yourself, and then you will know." 

It is a safe offer. The civilian 
only sees that the sea is a vast place, 
divided between wisdom and chance. 
He only knows that the uttermost 
oceans have been swept clear, and 
the trade-routes purged, one by one, 
even as our armies were being con- 
voyed along them; that there was no 
island nor key left unsearched on any 






122 THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET 

waters that might hide an enemy's 
craft between the Arctic Circle and 
the Horn. He only knows that less 
than a day's run to the eastward of 
where he stands, the enemy's fleets 
have been held for a year and four 
months, in order that civilization 
may go about its business on all our 
waters. 



THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY. NEW YORK 






